How to Avoid Opinion-Based Decision-Making… Do this Tomorrow

I’m sitting in a room (virtual) and facilitating a strategy session for a product leadership team. This is a very dedicated and hard working team who are also overwhelmed by a very log list of initiatives and shiny objects that have been handed down from the broader company leadership team. The discussion is centered around “I think” and “I believe” and we go round and round on what other leaders and company SME’s have conveyed to them…some completely divergent from one another. No one feels comfortable that they can propose a path forward. Sound familiar?

I see a lot of companies struggle with this. We’d all love to say that we look at reports daily, we save time for strategic thinking each week, we stay close to our customers through ongoing, regularly scheduled interactions (be it interviews or observational sessions, etc.) But let’s face it. Most teams have a hard time just keeping up with the day to day operations.

Now, if you can shift the mindset and operations of the team to do more insight and feedback gathering as a regular practice, more power to you. We recommend it! And we have all sorts of advice and tools to help you make that transition. But let’s talk about what you can do tomorrow to be more effective at decision making and getting commitment as a bridge to this transition.

Let’s go through 3 tips you can do tomorrow in avoiding the data free zone of decision making.

Tip 1: Identify who the decision maker is vs. people that have an input

Decisions are constantly derailed by folks that feel they have a say in a decision. We’ve all been there. Someone that once was in your organization or knows the code or is a leader of a big functional organization or is influential with the leadership team…Organizations are full of folks with great intent but create massive churn in the product creation process. There is a great decision making framework called RACI. Many of you have probably heard of it.

R = Responsible – The person responsible for facilitating closure to the decision. That’s usually you, the product person.

A = Approver – There should only be 1, sometimes 2, but never more. Get clarity with your leaders and force the decision on who is the approver. And make it known to everyone involved.

C= Consulted – This is an important group. These are the SMEs or people that are significantly impacted by the decision. Sometimes these folks think they are decision makers. Make it clear, they are an important source of input into the final decision, but not approvers.

I = Informed – this could be a long list. These are all the folks the might need to know.

Action Item 1: Does your decision have a clear approver? And are your C’s clear on who that person(s) is? If not, establish this now. Put the RACI roles at the top of every decision-related communication going forward. Every deck should have the RACI in the appendix for reference. Start now. Better late than never.

Tip 2: Agree & document the problem you are solving AND the criteria by which you are going to make a decision

Be clear on what you are solving for and how you will evaluate your options. Are you solving for Time to market? Cost to develop? Revenue impact? NPS impact? And please don’t say “all of the above.” No way! Prioritize. Without clear prioritization of your criteria and getting agreement on that prioritization, you’ll end up where you started; Everyone with different opinions and no one wanting to commit to a decision. Or even worse…giving you the “nod” only to overturn the decision later.

It’s always good to articulate what you are solving in terms of a business or customer problem or as an opportunity with a clear definition of success. In addition to this, I always list the criteria by which the options will be evaluated. Define what they mean and show which are most important and why. Help bring your audience along so you start the discussion at a level playing field, so to speak. If you don’t have agreement on this, then there’s no sense in continuing the conversation.

Action Item 2: Does your approver AND your C’s have a consistent definition of the problem you are solving and the most important criteria by which you will be evaluating your options? If not, establish this now. Document it and bring it to your next decision meeting…start the meeting with this. First page of the deck should always be a reminder of what you are solving and how you are deciding.

Tip 3: Gather the data you do have…Put stakes in the ground where data is missing.

I can’t tell you how many times I see teams paralyzed by “lack of data.” Let’s be clear…YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH DATA. The idea is to use what you have and clearly call out hypotheses where data is lacking. Then build (and communicate) a plan for validating/disproving your hypotheses. We use “proxy” data a lot to triangulate on a solid hypothesis. For example: If you don’t know what the usage is in terms of user sessions by day, look for indicators like backend transactions or records created by day and develop a hypothesis for usage based on what you do have. Or how about this one? You don’t know the top drivers of churn in your business, then find out the task drop out rates using the system logs and understand the top support team contact drivers and make some hypotheses about what part of the experience is creating the most pain. It’s not fool proof, but it’s better than thrashing around in the data-free zone of opinions. You have to start somewhere. And data is the best place to start.

Another way to use data is to try understanding the worst or best something could be based on what you have. “The best our penetration could be in this market it 40% because 60% of this market is comprised of vertical a, b, and c which we’ve learned can’t use our product or have higher on-boarding costs, or….” Provide the starting points for deductive reasoning.

Instead of being paralyzed or attempt an opinion-based discussion, find what you can to put a solid stake in the ground or put some guardrails around the decision, so your team can confidently move forward. Be clear on where you are hypothesizing and what data you are using to make those hypotheses.

NOTE: Don’t forget to provide the team with a plan for how you will prove/disprove each hypothesis. This gives your most vocal naysayers comfort in committing to a decision (that they may not agree with, but understand how you got there) while knowing you are going to prove/disprove the hypotheses with actual data. In their minds, it means that if you are wrong, you’ll let them know and they won’t be left expending a ton of effort against a direction that is fruitless.

Action Item 3: Are you in the middle of an opinion-based decision process where you feel you don’t have enough data? Identify alternative data points and hypotheses that can help with putting some stakes in the ground that provide guardrails on the debate and guide your team to a more efficient, confident decision. I always have a page in my deck or a set of bullets in my email that talk about key hypotheses or helpful data points that minimize unnecessary debate.

Opinion-based decisions are painful and costly to the organization. These are a few really quick changes you can make in your process that make a world of difference in terms of efficiency and durability of decisions. Happy decision-making!

Product Rebels is a product management training and coaching firm run by long term product executives for companies like Intuit and Mitchell International. We have trained over 200 companies small and enterprise level in the skills and frameworks that help product management leaders and product managers deliver kickass customer experiences. We have a passion finding efficient ways of infusing customer insight into everything product teams do in pursuit of experiences that customers love …and that drive growth. Join us in the Product Rebels Community on Facebook.

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